The second Perspective on Progress Tour — a two-day excursion through the Athens and Oconee County areas for site-selection executives from across the country — came to a conclusion Friday morning with a talk by University of Georgia President Jere Morehead, who suggested that the future success of UGA leans heavily on continuing economic development within the state.

“One of the things I believe our faculty have become conscious of at our institution is understanding that a strong and positive economic picture for the country and the state of Georgia translates into a strong and vibrant University of Georgia,” Morehead said during a brunch at the Georgia Museum of Art.

Morehead pointed out that while UGA, like many public universities, doesn’t rely as strongly on state funding as it has in past years, some 30 percent of the university’s budget “is tied directly to the ability of the state of Georgia to support us, and the ability of the state of Georgia to support us is tied clearly to the strength of Georgia’s economy.”

The Perspectives on Progress Tour is a collaborative effort between economic development organizations in Clarke and Oconee counties that amounts to a showcase of what the region has to offer, not only in terms of available land inventory and expert consultation, but also in terms of quality of life highlights.

Participants from throughout the Southeast, with site selectors from Ohio and California also along for the tour, took part in the show-and-tell that included stops ranging from Athena Industrial Park, Watkinsville Industrial Park and Oconee Gateway Business Park to Caterpillar, Ciné, the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation and the new Creature Comforts Brewery.

Morehead made it clear that UGA stands ready to apply its considerable resources to aid economic development in the area and the state. He illustrated this pledge by mentioning the many ways that UGA, which recently was one of 16 schools in the country to receive the Economic Prosperity Universities of America Award, seeks to become an even bigger player in attracting and sustaining business.

He said UGA’s Public Service and Outreach office has hosted professional development workshops throughout the state and recently held seminars on “Financing Economic Development Deals” in both Athens and Tifton. And The Carl Vinson Institute has a hand in the mix with conducting required training for Georgia’s development authorities.

The Office of the Vice President for Research touts Corporate Connect, which seeks to attract commerce to campus, and the Technology Commercialization Office identifies UGA research findings with market potential and works with researchers to secure funding.

“There are more than 350 commercial products currently on the market that began as UGA research and 129 companies that have grown out of our research,” Morehead said. “There are more than 1,000 active licenses with 25 percent of them connected to Georgia-based businesses.”

Saying that “small business is essential to Georgia’s economic health,” Morehead added that UGA’s Small Business Development Center is charged with the establishment of expansion of businesses and is good at what they do, having helped create nearly 10,000 new jobs, 1,400 new businesses and some $400 million in capital in the state in the last five years.

The most recent piece of the economic development puzzle to arise is UGA’s opening an economic development office in Atlanta, just down the hall from the Georgia Department of Economic Development. The office is led by Sean McMillan, one of the organizers of the Perspectives on Progress Tour.

“We settled on the idea that we needed a direct presence in Atlanta and we created an economic development office there,” Morehead said. “We felt we needed a face, an individual that could interact with the business community and could then come back to the university and say, ‘We need faculty that can help on X,Y and Z. Who can we get to step forward and work on that kind of project?’

“Sean is key in moving that initiative forward. He’s going all across the state letting people know UGA wants to be involved in economic development, wherever it is, and we want to get our faculty more involved.”

Reiterating that a strong Georgia bolsters a strong UGA, Morehead extended the university’s hand to the visitors, inviting partnerships of every stripe.

“We know the future of the University of Georgia is tied to future of the state of Georgia,” he said. “We want a stronger and more vital state and we want to see the state continue to move forward in terms of education, economic development and all of the things that matter if you want to keep building a great state. And we want to be right in the middle of all of it.”